Dishonored

There was nothing that made Caesar Accardo happier than coming home to Philadelphia after fucking with another one of his father’s plans for him. This time it was a failed marriage arrangement between him and a daughter of a New York family. He’d hoped to have a bit of his own brand of fun—fucking up people’s lives in a way only he could while he was there—but he ended up having other things to focus on.

Like not getting married because his father told him to.

His father hadn’t stopped to consider that the Gallucci Cosa Nostra out east would have their own giant pile of steaming shit they were currently dealing with—a pile of shit that worked to Caesar’s benefit in more ways than one when it came to getting him out of the whole marriage deal.

Marriage was not for him.

Not one he chose.

Not one arranged.

It just wasn’t in his cards.

Honestly, this wasn’t the first time Angelo tried to pull this trick on his son. It probably wouldn’t be the last, either. Caesar was starting to believe he should wear a fucking sign on his back that simply read: Lucky little shit. If nothing more than for the amount of times he managed to somehow screw up everything his father planned for him.

As soon as the plane had taxied to the gate, the passengers in coach wasted no time standing, and getting their bags down from the overhead bins. They crowded the aisle soon after even with the cute flight attendant asking them all to remain seated for another few minutes.

Caesar didn’t even bother to stand.

What would be the point?

He was not like the rest of these people—he rushed for nothing, and no one. He didn’t push and shove to get what he wanted, or to be at the front of the line. That looked good on no man, but especially not one of his status.

His life had allowed him that privilege and status. His appearance was everything and nothing all at once; sometimes he cared to indulge in maintaining his appearance, and other times, he preferred to stain it with just about everything he could.

The dark urge came on like an itch he couldn’t scratch. A whispered voice in his ear demanding he feed the shame that was ever-present in his mind. Like fingernails digging into his back and pushing him into something awful.

And yet, it always made him feel better.

Never failed.

Funny how that worked.

He mulled over his shitty decision to take the earliest flight out of New York—which just happened to be a seat in coach instead of the first class he would usually fly. Soon enough, coach had been deplaned, and Caesar decided it was time for him to move his ass, too.

Maybe it wasn’t only flying coach that had him in a mood. After all, pretty soon, he was going to need to face his father and let Angelo Accardo know that—yet again—Caesar didn’t follow through with one of his demands and plans.

Not that telling him would be the problem. Caesar would greatly enjoy that part—he always took pleasure out of upsetting or angering his father by doing exactly the opposite of what Angelo wanted. He’d always been a disappointment to his father, anyway, so he got his thrill from proving that theory exactly right.

Living up to my birthright, Papa.

That had never changed in all his twenty-seven years.

It was what might come after that concerned Caesar. His father was predictable in that way when it came to his son. Angelo only settled himself on working that much harder to put Caesar in his place, or to take him down a couple of notches.

To his father, Caesar was … too arrogant.

Too undisciplined.

Too wild.

Too fucking everything.

And nothing a made man living the life of Cosa Nostra should be. Anyone who was asked would say Caesar had no morals, zero honor, and a severe lack of care when it came to their life, traditions, and rules.

They would be right, too.

That was the whole problem, though—Angelo wanted Caesar to be something he couldn’t be. His father wanted his son to be him.

Twenty years ago, when Caesar was just a boy still, he would have been happy and pleased to be compared to his father. He wanted to emulate Angelo in every single aspect of his life. Except … he had been just a boy then—stupid, innocent, and naive.

He was none of those things anymore.

Someone had taken it away from him.

It all started and ended right there.

Tossing the leather messenger bag over his shoulder, Caesar headed down the plane for the exit, and gave the flight attendant a wink as he passed. The reddish tint that instantly colored up her cheeks at his gaze drifting over her pencil skirt and then lingering on the top two buttons of her unbuttoned blouse made him grin—satisfied. Had he been in first class, and she paid more than twenty seconds of attention to him during the flight, he might have seen just how long it would take before she snuck him into the bathroom to get a hand up that tight skirt of hers.

Another thrill of his.

Women, that was.

Caesar didn’t have much of a preference when it came to females, but he did have a kink, of sorts. Or that’s what his friend—his only friend—liked to call it. As if calling it a kink somehow made it slightly less unappealing or wrong. Married women, or those he shouldn’t be fucking with for one reason or another, were a particular favorite of his.

Maybe it was the shame they would feel after …

Or the forbidden that got his dick hard …

It could be any number of things.

It didn’t matter.

That’s what he liked.

Not today, though.

He gave the flight attendant another look—including the wedding band on her finger—and forced his gaze away before he disembarked the plane. He had other things to handle before he could worry about sticking his dick into something warm and wet.

Things like his father.

And his family.

Speaking of which …

Caesar had just come down the escalator at arrivals when the sight of someone waiting for him down below had his rage simmering damn near instantly. Of fucking course his father wouldn’t let Caesar come home to no one waiting for him.

He should have known better.

But shit, he was surprised to see the man who his father did send to wait for him. His half-brother—Daniele.

Was Angelo trying to start a war?

Because Daniele looked ready for it.

Caesar found that amusing.

That was half the problem.

“Caesar,” Daniele greeted when Caesar stepped off the escalator.

The hatred dripped from his half-brother’s tone. It almost made Caesar giddy—yet another person in his life that he had ruined in one way or another. Really, what Caesar had done to Daniele was just a by-product of someone else’s doings to him.

So was Caesar’s circle.

Vicious.

Cold.

And far too wide.

Everyone got caught in it.

Eventually …

“Papa sent you?” Caesar asked.

“Why else would I come? Others were busy.”

Or they made excuses.

“And you couldn’t be busy, too?” Caesar asked.

“I was told to get over what happened, and that starts with this.”

Right.

His half-brother was never going to get over what happened. Daniele was never going to forgive Caesar for what he did, or forget it. That was kind of the point, though. That was exactly why Caesar did it. He needed his brother to remember what he had done, and that he could do it again in a second.

Hell.

Maybe he would do it again.

Daniele’s gaze blazed with his blinding rage. “And unlike you, I make an effort to follow the rules our father sets out for us.”

Sure he did.

That’s why he was the favored one.

The golden Accardo son.

The honored.

The loved.

The perfect made man.

And Caesar?

He was the dishonored.

The despised.

The shamed made man.

And he fucked his half-brother’s wife just because he could—because like his father, Caesar enjoyed taking people down a peg or two, also.

He humbled people in a different way.

Caesar liked this way better.

The Accardo estate was set in a private, gated community just outside the Philly city limits. It was almost disconcerting how one could go from the hustle and bustle of cement and steel—something he preferred—to the quiet stillness of a rich suburb.

Most people tended to feel comfort, warmth, and nostalgia when they came back to their childhood home, but Caesar was not one of those people. He felt everything but those things, and all of it was negative.

Most notable was the anxiety that was ever present from the second he drove into the large circular driveway. He hid the slight trembling of his hands by shoving them into the pockets of his slacks. His clenched jaw couldn’t be contained, but his father was so accustomed to seeing Caesar in some form of scowling or displeasure that he probably wouldn’t even notice.

Inside the three-level, two-wing monster of a home, Caesar became slightly more agitated than before. His gaze was drawn upward—to a place that left him most haunted whenever he was forced to come here and stay for longer than a breath.

Monster was a good word for this place, as it certainly felt like it could be a living, breathing thing. A tangible horror he couldn’t escape from that left him feeling tainted in far more ways than one.

Much like the people inside.

Or because of the people inside.

It was all the same now.

Daniele broke away from Caesar the moment he could, and without a goodbye. Likely to find his mother—a woman, Martina, Caesar’s father had married shortly after his mother died when he was only four. Soon after, Daniele came along.

Caesar remembered that day vividly.

And the years that followed.

All those fucking years.

His jaw clenched harder, and he felt the pain throbbing in his molars from the action. It was his go-to move to get the hell out of his thoughts and memories—pain, or sex. One or the other, because he wasn’t fucking picky.

Either one would do the deal.

Get it over with; see him and get out.

His thoughts had the right idea, so he went in search of his father in the large mansion. Unsurprisingly, he found Angelo in his large office sitting behind his domineering oak desk. He never understood the need for a man to have a desk that size other than to show off wealth, or intimidate a man standing on the other side of it.

But who was he to say?

Caesar stood in the doorway until his father pretended like he noticed his waiting presence. Angelo knew his oldest son was there from the moment Daniele drove them through the gate. That’s what the half of a dozen fucking guards were for.

“There you are,” Angelo said, sitting straighter in his chair, and folding his hands on the desk. “Give me the good news, son.”

Yes, the good news.

That the marriage would happen.

That all was well.

That Angelo got what he wanted.

Caesar shrugged, and felt the tension in his shoulders loosening a bit at the promise of what was to come when he said, “A bit of a change in plans, I guess.”

Instantly, the happiness in Angelo’s expression fled. “How so?”

“New York had to back out for … reasons. Seems their daughter somehow got back to her Russian husband, and, well, our marriage won’t be going ahead.”

It took a second.

Then, two.

Caesar waited with a small smile that he couldn’t be bothered to hide.

And then there it was.

Molten red dotting his father’s cheeks. Narrowed eyes as Angelo took Caesar and his gleeful disposition in all over again.

Rage.

Disappointment.

And for him?

For Caesar, it all spelled his triumph.

“What happened?” his father hissed.

“I just told you.”

“Did you help the girl get back to her husband?”

“Why would I do that?” Caesar asked innocently.

But yes, he had.

And he would do it again.

Angelo was quiet for a long time, and it gave Caesar the chance to observe his father more studiously while he was distracted by his thoughts. His father was all meat and girth—something Daniele had taken from the man. Dark hair, rounded face, and brown eyes.

Caesar, on the other hand, was grateful to have taken his features from his dead mother’s side of the family. From their strong jawlines to the blond wavy hair that he kept a little too long for his father’s liking, and even the steel-blue eyes. Standing next to his father, Caesar’s lean runner’s form was a bright contrast against the Italian girth his father sported.

He liked the differences.

Liked that he was different from them.

He didn’t want to be the same.

“This is, what, the fourth marriage you’ve somehow found your way out of?” Angelo asked. “I am catching onto your schemes, Caesar. You cannot ruin every single marriage arrangement I make for you—mark my words, one will go through.”

“Actually, it’s five,” Caesar said, “if you include the poor girl that took her life two years ago.”

By jumping off a goddamn bridge.

She had not wanted to be forced to marry.

Caesar understood that feeling well.

“Yes, well, you didn’t have any hand in foiling that one,” his father muttered heavily. Then, his gaze lifted to find Caesar in the doorway, asking, “Or did you?”

“I am not that kind of monster, Papa.”

“Hard to tell sometimes with the shit you do, figlio.”

“So says you.”

Angelo grunted, and slumped a little in his chair. “That … that right there, Caesar.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You have an attitude problem, and I will be damned if I don’t find a way to correct it before I have to kill you for it.”

He’d once been his father’s favorite.

He’d lost that when he fucked his brother’s wife.

Caesar lifted a brow, uncaringly. “I don’t have an attitude problem.”

“Oh, no?” Angelo laughed darkly. “How do you figure? Indulge me, son. Name one other man who would think your attitude is in any way acceptable for a made man in Cosa Nostra?”

Angelo quieted.

A tic showed in his jaw.

Yes, this was making Caesar feel much better.

Soon, he would be gone, too.

All good things.

“Until I figure out what to do with you,” Angelo grumbled under his breath as he scrubbed a hand down his jaw, “things have changed here since you were in New York.”

That piqued his interest.

“How so?”

“The Camorra family on the west end—they’ve begun moving into our streets.”

Caesar nodded appreciatively. “Someone has big balls.”

Because the Accardo family was a force to be reckoned with in Philly. They were too large, and had far too much control of the area to be challenged by a rather small Camorra clan when put in to comparison. And the two criminal organizations were a world apart from one another despite both being Italian based.

One, structured like a pyramid.

The other, structured more like a horizontal line.

And when a family took one clan down, five more might pop up from the ruins because of their structure. Caesar had to give them that—Camorra clans were fucking resilient. That was just about all he knew regarding them, though.

Cosa Nostra was his thing.

Very little else.

“Yes, well, balls or not,” Angelo said, anger coloring his tone again, “they need to go. I won’t have them causing me these kinds of problems regardless of what they want. And until things are settled here—your brother and the rest of my men are still a bit sour with you from all the shit you pulled a few months back—you’re handling that issue.”

Caesar stiffened. “What, the Camorra clan?”

“Yes, get rid of them. Make them a deal. Wipe them out. Just … do something, Caesar. Be useful for once.”

He brushed that insult off.

One of many.

“I can probably handle that,” Caesar said. “Someone needs to have eyes on my streets—Capo business never stalls.”

Angelo smiled then—thin, and cold. “Someone has been, son. Daniele, actually. He’s really stepped up in your absence.”

Caesar kept his expression blank, but he still heard the underlying threat in his father’s words. He heard what the man didn’t say.

Daniele could and would replace him.

Easily, likely.

The fucker could try.

“But for now, I’m having a dinner tonight with a few of the men from the family, and your brother,” Angelo added. “I think you could make the effort to sit at the table and be some version of pleasant. Can’t you?”

Caesar started listing names in his head.

Names of men in the family.

Names of their wives.

There was maybe three men whose wives Caesar hadn’t gotten to in his special way—it was likely he was going to sit at the table with men who knew very well that he’d at one point or another, got a taste of what was between their women’s thighs.

He enjoyed that.

Compromising them all in that way.

It was his only control.

He needed it.

“Dinner sounds nice; I could eat.”

Angelo cocked a brow, obviously hearing the slyness in Caesar’s tone. “Don’t pull any shit, figlio. You step out of line one more time, and so help me God, I will put you in the grave I should have given you years ago.”

“Promises, promises,” Caesar called over his shoulder as he left his father behind. “You’re always making those, and yet never keeping them.”

Death would be a gift.

His father would never give it to him.

*

Dinner was a fucking bore.

Caesar could barely open his mouth without his father glaring in his direction—a silent order for him to sit still and shut the fuck up. His father hadn’t lied, though. Only a handful of men were there to eat and discuss the latest business in the organization, but Caesar was out of the loop in that regard.

Shitty by-product of being gone for so long.

Not that he wanted to talk business.

Caesar was downing his second glass of wine when the high-pitch, nasally voice of his step-mother resounded from the entryway behind him.

“Is the wife not invited to this party of yours, Angelo?” Her laughter felt like nails raking down Caesar’s back—a bloody trail of pain and hate he couldn’t escape. “I’m offended, mio bello.”

At the head of the table, Caesar’s father hid his displeasure at Martina interrupting his dinner with the men. She should have known her place after two decades of marriage to the man, yet she still kept pushing her boundaries.

Angelo let her.

That was part of the problem.

Well, that and the fact she was almost always drunk. And when she wasn’t entirely plastered, then she was pretty fucking close to it. Angelo did a good job of hiding his wife’s alcoholism, but not from his son. Caesar had gotten a taste of this woman’s vile vindictiveness one too many goddamn times.

Martina’s hand brushed Caesar’s shoulder as she passed him by at the table—her silent hello. She never offered very much more when others were around, and he liked it just fine that way. He did absolutely everything he could not to have a conversation alone with the woman or get stuck in private with her.

She was the woman who replaced his mother.

She was shrill and horrible.

He hated her.

Always had.

He only learned how to hate her more and in different ways over the years, but no one cared to hear about those details.

No one wanted to know.

“Ma,” Daniele greeted when Martina bent over his shoulder to kiss her son’s cheek.

“My boy.”

A pat to his cheek.

Soft, and sweet.

Then, she moved onto her husband, ready to put herself in his path, and in the spotlight for everyone else in the room. So was her way. Typical, and predictable.

Nothing fucking new.

Caesar was still trying to forget the way her hand felt on his shoulder, and how it left a heavy weight behind. He hated when she touched him.

It left dirtiness behind.

Caesar was up out of his seat before anyone even knew what was happening and had tossed his napkin down to the table. He didn’t bother to turn and see his step-mother drop in his father’s lap, but her giggles were more than enough to send him the hell out of that dining room.

Those feelings her touch invoked still thrummed deep even as he half-jogged down the hallway and came to the grand entry. They should have left him the moment he was out of the mansion and calling for a cab. It always went away then, except for this time.

This time, it felt stronger.

It ate at him.

The dirty, awful feelings still lingered long after he re-entered the city limits.

Only two things could fix it.

Pain.

Or sex.

He chose the latter when he told the cab driver, “Lucifer’s Den—the club downtown. Take me there.”